The man she’d destroyed. The one she could restore. She could give him back the life she had taken. She could return him to his former glory—to the world he’d loved, the women and the balls and the aristocracy. The world he could not have if he did a stupid, noble thing and married her.
No. This was the greatest gift she could give him, even if it would take the greatest sacrifice she had ever made.
The one where she gave up everything she wanted.
The only thing she wanted.
Him.
She wasn’t his dream. She wasn’t his goal. She couldn’t be the wife, the mother, the legacy. “We cannot marry,” she said, softly.
He kissed the top of her head. “Sleep with me tonight, and let me convince you tomorrow why it is the best of all my ideas.”
She shouldn’t. She should leave him now, while she had the strength. “I can’t—”
He interrupted her with a long, lush kiss, one filled with something more than passion. With something she did not wish to identify, for if she identified it, she might never do what needed to be done.
“Stay.”
Her heart broke at the word, dark and graveled on his lips. At the desire in it. At the promise in it. At the knowledge that if she did, he would do everything in his power to keep her. To protect her.
At the knowledge that if she did, he would never have the life he deserved. One free of scandal and ruin. One free of the memories of his past and his destruction.
He was too perfect. Too right. And she was all wrong.
She would only ruin him again. Only destroy everything he ever wanted. She had to leave him. She had to leave before she was too tempted to stay.
And so she told one final lie. The most important one she’d ever tell.
“I will.”
He slept then, and once his breathing was deep and even, she told the truth.
“I love you.”
Chapter 19
He woke at peace, for the first time in twelve years, already reaching for Mara, eager to pull her into his arms and make love to her properly. Eager to show her all the ways it was right for them to marry. Eager to show her all the ways he would make her happy. All the ways he would love her.
And he would love her, as strange and ethereal as the word seemed, as much as he’d never thought it would have place in his life. He would love her.
He would start today.
Except she was not in the bed. He came up with a handful of empty sheets, too cool to have been left recently.
Dammit. She’d run.
He out of bed within seconds, already pulling on the trousers she’d stripped from him the night before, doing his best to block the memory from his mind. Not wanting his reason or judgment clouded by the things she made him feel. Passion. Pleasure. Sheer, unadulterated frustration.
He was dressed and down the stairs within seconds, out to the mews to saddle his horse and in front of No. 9 Cursitor Street within thirty minutes. He took the stairs to the orphanage three at a time and was inside before most people could knock. It was a good thing the door was unlocked, or he might have torn it down himself.
Lydia was crossing the foyer when he entered, stopping her mid-stride. He did not hesitate. There was no time for pleasantries. “Where is she?”
The woman had learned from a master. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, where is who?”
He had gone more than thirty years without throttling a female, and he was not about to start now. But he was not above using his size to intimidate. “Miss Baker, I am in no mood for games.”
Lydia took a deep breath. “She is not here.”
At his core, he knew it was true, but he did not wish to believe it. So instead of continuing their useless conversation, he went to her office and opened the door, hoping to find her there, behind her desk, auburn hair pulled back in a tight knot.
But she was not.
The desk was pristine, as though it had been placed perfectly for the London stage, and not for any useful purpose.
He turned. Met Lydia’s eyes, sad and full of truth. “Her chamber. Take me to it.”
She considered refusing. He saw it in her. But something changed her mind, and instead, she turned to climb the stairs, up two flights and down a long hallway until she stopped in front of an oak door, firmly shut. He did not wait for her permission, opening it. Entering.
It smelled like lemons.
Lemons, and Mara.
The little room was neat and clean, just as he would have expected. There was a small wardrobe, too small to hold anything more than the bare necessities, and a little table on which sat a half-burned candle and a stack of books. He moved to look at them. Novels. Well-worn and well-loved.
And there was a tiny bed, one she no doubt hung off of when she slept, the only part of the room that was imperfect, because it was currently covered in emerald silk. The dress she’d worn the night before, when she’d revealed herself to the world, and next to it, the matching ermine cloak, and in a little, neat stack, the gloves he’d given her.
She was out in the world, and she did not have any gloves.
He lifted them from the bed, bringing them to his nose, hating the slide of silk, wishing it were her skin. Her heat.
He turned to face Lydia. “Where is she?”
There was sadness in her eyes. “Gone.”
No.